ACC to hire contractor for 3-way tie in Atlantic Division

Fans have pondered who would be the ACC Atlantic representative for the ACC title game if Clemson (#5), Louisville (#3), and Florida State (#13) all finish with one loss on the season. There is a slim possibility that each team could finish 11-1, 7-1 in ACC play and 1-1 against each other.

The ACC Athletic Directors voted over the summer that they will turn to a private contractor SportsSource Analytics for a "team rating score metric" to determine who will play for the ACC league title if there is a three-way tie in the Atlantic Division at the end of the season.

"The decision to change our tiebreaker from utilizing the CFP ranking to the team rating score was based on the reality that we're not in a position to wait until Tuesday night [Nov. 29] to determine a division champion that's going to participate in Saturday's championship game [Dec. 3]," ACC senior associate commissioner Michael Strickland said via ESPN.com. "This summer, our athletic directors unanimously decided to insert this metric as the seventh and final step before a blind draw."

SportsSource Analytics already provides statistics for the CFB playoff committee members but is not released to the public.

The team rating score is described as "a metric that evaluates all facets of on-field team performance that are highly correlated to team success and combines them into a single comparable value."